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GM Degens,
Lots of talk lately about the price of $DEGEN, wanted to share a few quick thoughts.
🧠 Market Context
BTC and ETH have been moving mostly because of institutional buying. ETH’s recent moves might also be tied to some shakeups at the Ethereum Foundation. But retail interest is still low across the board.
Altcoins like $DEGEN haven’t seen much institutional support, and with retail sitting out, many are just moving sideways. It’s not just us, it’s the market.
🌍 Listings & Access
We’ve done a ton of work getting $DEGEN listed and available across exchanges and apps, and we’ll keep pushing there. I think we’ve delivered great results so far.
📢 Promotion
Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much promo support from Coinbase or Farcaster. I wish they’d highlight us more, I’ll be reaching out to Coinbase about that.
Once the Degen app launches, we’ll be ramping up our own promo, including a campaign with Bankless. More to come there.
🛠️ Still Building
We’re heads-down continuing to build, both the Degen mini app and the full Degen app. We’ve got 2–3 years of runway and aren’t going anywhere.
If you believe in what we’re doing, stick with us, we’re just getting started.
Not financial advice. Just sharing where things stand. 41 replies
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The answer to this is simple and two pronged:
1. Make what you are building so good, they can't ignore it.
2. You need to rebuild the community.
1. Context
Bankr: Bankr wasn't always in the cabal, and ham certainly wasn't. IIRC Tn100x was largely ignored by most, but Deployer cultivated a cult, and that cult pivoted to Bankr, and bankr became something Base couldn't ignore.
Zora is on fire, and has the 'pump dot fun of base' narrative. It's the golden child of Base, no doubt, but comparing degen to zora in terms of attention from Base is an unproductive pursuit.
Clanker: Arguably one of the best projects to come out of Base and has real utility. Degen is not that, at least not at the moment.
As it stands now, Degen is not in a league with these three things. Those maybe hard words to hear, but it is the case at the moment. Put Degen in the conversation, and then you won't have to ask for Base support.
2. Context
Degen had immaculate vibes at the beginning. Feb 14th was one of my most fun days on crypto, ever. But then you got distracted with farmers and bots and attempted to stifle their gaming of the system. In doing so, a lot of good people caught a lot of collateral damage. Those that complained, you dismissed. Many quietly quit.
Then came the L3. No one wanted it, no one got it. Those that the questioned it were patronized. (I was one). In many discords I was in, the vibe was Ben Affleck smoking a cigarette when asked their opinion on the DL3. More people quietly quit.
Then there was the vault, the bannings, reduced tipping etc etc. I don't doubt you had to curb tipping for longevity, but it was messy. Locking up degen for a pittance, cracking down on bots but hitting a lot of good community folks in the process. More quietly quit.
A small but (I think) important note, don't use AI in your social posts. You are trying to cultivate an authentic cult and you can't do that with AI responses. (Emoji lists and em-dashes are a dead give-a-way).
Conclusion:
I like degen, I still hold a sizeable bag, but I've checked out. I don't want to but I don't know what your building, not really. I don't know what the answer is from an app standpoint, but culturally and with respect to communications, I'd build it, make it awesome and get back to the care-free, cult days of the past. Adopt a mentality of Fuck Base for not paying attention. Make them come to you when you become so relevant to the TBA and FC experience. With a Legion of purple hat wearing warriors jump down the throats of Jessie Zora-Love posts.
In short. Act like a Degen.
My hat is still on.
- caygeon. 2 replies
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I think there's confusion about what Degen is. You talk a lot about hiring devs, heads down building, new offices, ship dates etc etc. (you've referred to Degen as a startup and have several staff to this point) So to someone who checks in on Degen from time to time (as i do), it would appear to me that Degen is a project/company that is building something. A comparison to Toshi makes no sense. If a great product doesn't need a token and vice versa, then I think Degen needs to clarify which it is. If both, that's great. A case could be made for burning the entire treasury, stopping all production and letting it rip. Full meme. A case could also be made for building something great and using degen as the token. Which is what it appears you are doing, so that's why I focused on that in my previous post.
If community has always been at the core, then I'm afraid that has not gone well. The community is fractured and looking at the new shiny things. A lot of people who were really into Degen don't talk about it anymore.
I think the point I'm trying to get at is two fold.
If you want Base to support you on the grounds of your community, you have to build back the community. It's not the same as it was. Months of rules, policing, banning, patronizing have diminished the community. And I know you could Quote Cast this, and say "oh yeah, show em community!" and get a bunch of hat stays on posts, i get that. But if you look at it objectively, the community is not the same. (I say this as someone who still has my hat on and has not sold a meaningful amount of degen since taking some profits in the $0.05 days)
If you want Base to support you on the grounds of your product/project, you have to show them. Publicly posting that they are ignoring you isn't winning anyone to your side, isn't building back the community, and isn't going to move the needle on Base doing anything. If the product is the key to the future of Degen, build it and release it and watch it flourish and restore everything that was great about Degen before. 1 reply
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